Gender Pay Gap

Gender pay gap consultancy for reporting businesses

Gender pay gap reporting regulations came into full effect for the first time in the UK in 2018. All employers with over 250 staff – in the private, public or non-profit sectors – must comply with the UK Government’s gender pay gap reporting requirements on an annual basis.

Given the extent of the issue, most employers will have a gender pay gap in the first year, but what happens next once the reports are filed?

EW Group offer expert guidance on gender pay gap analysis and action-planning. Our team of specialist gender diversity consultants can work with you to identify the strategic priorities that will support you in closing the gender pay gap – and reaping the business benefits as a result.

How to close the gender pay gap – expert analysis, support and action-planning

Early November currently marks the time in our calendars that women in the UK effectively start to work for free, such is the extent of gender inequality in the workplace.

The gender pay gap is the measure of the difference between men’s and women’s average earnings across an organisation or the labour market. In the UK, the gender pay gap still stands at over 9%. According to the World Economic Forum, 2017 marked the first year that the gender pay gap had widened since 2006.

We recognise that the gender pay gap is a complex issue – there are no magic bullets here. By drawing on over 25 years of experience in diversity and inclusion consultancy, we are best placed to address those structural and cultural barriers to gender equality that can affect even the best-intentioned of organisations. We’re specialists in addressing unconscious bias, and the impact it can have on the recruitment, retention and promotion of women. And we’re expert proponents of creating inclusive cultures at work, allowing our clients to maximise the talent and potential of their employees, whatever their gender.

Working with EW Group will support you in building a viable narrative around your gender pay gap reporting and analysis. We’ll work in partnership with you to define:

Your organisational roadmap to close the gender pay gap

Your senior-level commitment to gender equality and inclusive culture

Your communications strategy around closing the gender pay gap

Your plans to support sustained change in gender pay.

Through our partnership with people analytics software specialists Staffmetrix, we are also able to provide guidance and support for improving your gender pay gap reporting capacity, whether it’s how to track recruitment, attrition and other key metrics, or how to drill down into your data analysis based on specific protected characteristics.

Talk to us about your next steps.

We’ll delve deep into the gender pay gap data beyond the headlines and isolate the priority areas for development. Then we’ll provide you with a set of short-, medium- and long-term recommendations in those key business areas, including:

Why addressing the gender pay gap matters – the business case in statistics

Closing gender gaps in work could add £150 billion to the UK GDP by 2025. That’s 6.8% higher than business as usual, or the rough equivalent of current annual GDP across the UK’s entire financial services sector, or current annual government expenditure on education, defence and transport.

Under-utilisation of women’s skills costs the UK economy between 1.3% and 2% of GDP every year. Eliminating the full-time gender pay gap would contribute £41 billion of additional spending to the economy each year.

Gender pay gap reporting – what are other companies doing?

In 2018, the low-cost airline easyJet reported a 52% mean gender pay gap. In response they have committed publicly to a target that 20% of new-entrant pilots should be women by 2020.

Meanwhile, McKinsey and Co have reported a 23.8% mean gender pay gap, attributing this to a disproportionately high proportion of men working in senior roles. To address this, McKinsey have committed to having 40% women in consultant roles by 2020, including 30% partners and 15% senior partners.

Elsewhere, UK asset management firm Hermes has committed to employing a dedicated diversity and inclusion manager, following its publication of a 30% gender pay gap, rising to 60% for the bonus pay gap.